14 May 2011

This is a fun recipe that I tried last night. It's an adaptation of "Cheeseburger Flatbread Melts" from the blog Kevin & Amanda. But when we tried them, they tasted more like sloppy joes than cheeseburgers, so I changed the name accordingly!

Meanwhile, heat canola oil over medium heat in a large, heavy bottomed skillet. Divide the pizza dough into 8 equal portions. Fry the dough for one minute on each side or until golden brown and bubbly. Remove to a paper towel to drain. Top with beef mixture and shredded cheese.

Makes 4 servings, 2 flatbread melts each.

These are really fun to make and to eat. We don't ever have sloppy joes at our house because my husband doesn't like Manwich (because it has green peppers in it, and I can't say that I blame him), and I have never been able to come up with my own recipe. But then when we were eating these last night, Jim said, "These taste like sloppy joes." And he was right. Really good sloppy joes. They really didn't remind me of a cheeseburger at all.

I made a few changes from the recipe Kevin and Amanda posted. I used garlic powder instead of minced garlic, mostly because I was lazy and didn't feel like messing with fresh garlic. I also changed how the flatbread is cut up. They cut theirs into 6 pieces, then rolled them out with a rolling pin into a (somewhat) round shape. I thought it divided better into 8 pieces, and since I don't own a rolling pin, I just left them rectangular. In the future I will use less vinegar than their recipe, because I thought was a tad on the tangy side. So I cut that in half in the recipe posted above. Also, I doubled the meat filling and cheese ingredients.

I have to admit that I did have some trouble cooking the flatbread correctly. At first it didn't seem like the pan was hot enough, because they weren't getting any color at all, so I turned it up and then they got a little too much color! I had never worked with this kind of dough before, so it will take some practice to get it down. But I would like to use it more in the future; I think it would be good with a wide variety of different toppings.

While I really liked it on the flatbread, I would definitely use this recipe to make regular sloppy joes on buns. I thought it was much tastier than Manwich and really, just as easy.

"These sound delicious! I've never had Manwich, but we do love sloppy joes. I have a similar recipe like Liz, except I use tomato sauce instead of ketchup. I do put green peppers in my sauce, but it could easily be omitted. Can't wait to try sloppy joes on flatbread.Thanks for all the recipes you post!"